


silver cities

by Vana



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Grantaire Angst, M/M, he deserves the same pain as my other faves, my favorite character in this book, one of my top 3 characters in any book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 14:02:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14021835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: Inspired by "If on a winter's night a traveller" by Italo Calvino and the music of Shearwater, especially the "Rooks" album.Don't ask me wtf this is.





	silver cities

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "If on a winter's night a traveller" by Italo Calvino and the music of Shearwater, especially the "Rooks" album.
> 
> Don't ask me wtf this is.

The drunken sot, 

child of gods  
boy of green forgetting  
man of charnel house  
loved by crackling candle  
loved by waterstained walls  
loved by empire loved by masonry

fumbled in his trousers, fished out his prick and took a piss off the bridge, into the Seine.

 

Beneath him, in the sewers,

the river was red  
the policeman heaved  
the breath came and stopped and came again

a fight was on, not between pursuer and prey but between conscience and necessity. A mouthful of bread against the law? What is the starving stomach and bare ribs of one child against the nation? You cannot have it, he could not have it, or anarchy was the very next step. One slippery step down into the thrashing water,

and you put that in your mouth  
and you swallow that foul thing  
and the algae of the city, more treacherous than poison, blooms in your lungs  
and in your guts, and the blood of the city you stole more precious than bread  
will poison you  
and it's over.

 

Light like explosives flashed through the shattered cut-glass windows of the pub,

where strangers had met and then kept meeting  
where feet had found each other under tables  
where eyelashes rested dainty on wine-warm cheeks  
where friends had clasped hands, once, the last time

and the green candle on the wooden table, dusty with the months of war and recent disrepair, had guttered out and the wick wormed down into the wax as if to hide. Enjolras,

beloved of the sun-slanted alleys  
beloved of lavender fields  
beloved of cool stone cellars beloved of libraries grey with use beloved of streams,

stood in the casement. A flag draped over his shoulder fell, brave and tattered, nearly to the ground and caught under the heel of his black boot. He shook it free in a motion like dancing. Enjolras threw open the window; the old, tired glass broke and fell to the street below. 

 

Grantaire awoke in the wide blank golden-gray room, with the blackness outside punctuated with gunshots. It was one of these, or a shout, that had wakened him. My God, he thought, the dreams of mine in this room. And where ...? 

No, not here.  
Not like this.  
Not without me.  
Not ever without me again.

Grantaire, whose past choked him like a stale crust of bread, whose words and thoughts and inspirations were corked as a ship's model,

resting on a mantel  
amusing a small child  
idle in the hands of a thinking godling, a man who could speak, a man who relentlessly and thoughtlessly  
uncorked the glass

and the ship, and the words, and the poetry came spilling out  
only an inconvenience  
an embarrassment for the busy Enjolras to clean up  
a fidgety genius that couldn't be looked at straight on

took a drink, felt the wine pushing down the bile and the words  
and corked the bottle again.

 

But not like this. He would drag Enjolras from that window and that pure death as long as he had strength in him. They would go to Provence

to Circassia  
to Algiers  
to the New World

And he would take Enjolras' hand away from the ship's model, away from the guns and the books and only in his own hand and walk him under the spring-pink trees of the Far East 

because he had dreamt them  
because he created them  
because he had been there

and he would lay him down in the glowing grass  
and he would soothe the fever  
and together they would conquer the world.

But first the niceties -- "Do you permit it?" There was no smell of ferment on Grantaire's breath, no wildness in his wide eyes. Now that the time had come he was calm and still as lilies in the summer ponds. Enjolras clasped his hand, and the world warmed, one pure sensation through the exhausted man's heart. Enjolras burned 

and burned  
and his touch seared Grantaire in twelve places  
and his hands fell into Grantaire's hair  
and the cobblestones fell away  
and sunset painted the land red  
from east to west, from the Seine to Archangelsk  
water everywhere overflowing them  
his lungs black with sweet wine  
his heart in the heart of his beloved  
pure and whole, trusted and true.


End file.
